San Diego Siege

there was no pursuit so he eased off and angled a glance toward his unhappy passenger.

'What did you say, Tony?' he asked frigidly.

'I said the guy wouldn't have the nerve to....'

The sounds just gurgled away and the little Mafioso was turning to stone, his mouth agape, staring with a horrifying awakening at the freeze-dried face of the big guy behind the wheel.

'Don't lose your voice now, Tony,' Bolan advised him. 'It's the only thing you've got between life and death.'

At that, it was a hell of a lot more than the Executioner could have had going for him, back at San Diego jail.

Cold, yeah.

It was what his game was made of.

Cold blood.

16 Off the numbers

They had cleared the area of all but official personnel and the morgue-like silence in that big hall was being well-resonated by the quivering-with-rage voice of Captain John Tatum.

He was leaning forward with both big hands splayed out across the jail warden's desk, his face thrust to within an inch of the other poor guy's as he shouted, 'Yes, I said kidnap! You let Mack Bolan stroll in here and kidnap one of your prisoners!'

The officer was desperately trying to get the homicide chief to consider two slips of paper which he was holding between trembling fingers. He spluttered, 'Hell, Cap'n, he signed the receipts.'

Tatum leaned back with a defeated sigh. There was nothing to be gained by badgering the poor bastard, the sigh seemed to say. In a voice subdued and embittered, he told the duty warden, 'Okay, Tom. You go tell the watch captain not to worry, that you've got signed receipts for the missing prisoner. You can paste them to his forehead when they bring him back...to the morgue.'

The desk cop muttered, 'Hell, it was just cut and dried routine. How was I to know? I can't personally recognize every officer on this force. Hell, we got — '

'I know the strength of our force,' Tatum rasped. 'Now you listen. You're on duty until the chief himself says otherwise. Got that? You don't go home, you don't even go to the pot. You see nobody and you talk to nobody who isn't toting a badge, and even then it'd better be somebody you know by sight. Got that?'

The guy nodded his head in miserable understanding.

Carl Lyons had been watching the performance from the safe background. Tatum turned to him and growled, 'What were you telling me about Bolan playing the odds? Some odds. This is the Goddamnedest most outrageous grandstand play I ever heard of.'

Lyons shrugged and dropped his eyes in commiseration for the other man's torment. Oftentimes, he realized, the flesh beneath those tough old police hides was painfully sensitive. He said, 'I forgot to tell you. The guy sometimes makes his own odds. I don't know what to say, John. I just don't know.'

'Well I've got to keep the wraps on this bullshit as long as I can. Maybe something will ... hell, this is a nightmare. I don't believe it. How can I tell them — those lawyers, the D.A., the court — how do I tell them a public good prisoner has been kidnapped by a probable assassin?'

'You're doing the right thing, if my opinion's worth anything,' Lyons declared quietly. 'Stall it all you can. Maybe....'

'Maybe what?' the Captain asked, ready to accept any gleam of hope.

'I don't know. Just maybe.'

'If Tony Danger turns up dead, I don't know ... either. The only prayer I know, Lyons, is the 23rd Psalm. And somehow it just doesn't seem to fit this problem.'

The old boy was really taking it hard.

Carl Lyons understood. Perfectly. You put your life into a job — you worked it and sweated it with every damned thing you had — and the only time anybody ever noticed you was when you stubbed your toe and fell, face-first. Yeah, he understood.

The deputy-chief arrived, followed moments later by the chief himself.

A reporter from the San Diego Union, probably picking up the vibrations of something hot, tried to get in. He was all but thrown back out.

The battery of lawyers representing the Lucasi bunch were still out there beyond those doors, raising hell louder and louder and demanding to know what was going on.

At almost exactly twenty minutes after the awful event, the duty warden looked up from a phone call he'd just answered and called out, 'Is there a Sergeant Carl Lyons in here?'

There was.

But who the hell would be calling him here?

Who the hell even knew that he was ... oh hell, it couldn't be.

In a tight voice he told Captain Tatum, 'Don't cancel any bets,' and stepped forward to take the call.

Yeah, God was still in heaven.

It was Bolan, sounding sober and troubled as he announced, 'I've got Tony Danger, Lyons.'

He threw an eye signal to Tatum as he replied, 'Man, you know how to hurt, don't you. Never mind the throat, just rip the heart out.'

That flinty voice told him, 'Tell your buddies not to worry. Ill take good care of their prisoner. Just borrowed him for awhile.'

'You better tell 'em yourself. Here, I'll — '

'No wait, Lyons. I'm almost ready to pass this town. But first I have to set something up. As long as you're around....'

The Sergeant chuckled drily. 'You know I can't — '

'You can this one. Listen to it, anyway,'

'I'm going to put another man on the line with us, Mack. Cap'n Tatum, Homicide. Good man, take my word for it.'

'All right, but shake it. I'm on short numbers.'

Tatum was already at the extension phone. He took Lyons' nod and picked it up. 'Tatum, Homicide,' he announced. 'Is that you, Mack Bolan?'

The Captain's eyes lifted to Lyons as that steely other voice vibrated the receivers, some indefinable emotion registering there in that locked gaze — not awe exactly, but something closely approaching it. Tatum was a cop who could respect greatness, under the law or not.

'It's me. Sorry if I shook your cage. I'd rather not. I'll return your prisoner as soon as he gives me what I need. An hour, maybe. Two at the most. Meanwhile I need something from your end. Soon as I get it, I'll pass this town. Didn't want to come here in the first place. Good town, San Diego. But you're infected with the creeping rot. I wouldn't even know where to begin carving it out. But I'm going to tip the bucket. It's up to you if it becomes a floor or not.'

'Wait,' Tatum rasped. 'Let's talk about Tony Dan — '

'You wait,' the frigid voice snapped back. 'The mob boys in your town are second stringers. There's not a Capo among them, not even a serious pretender. Your real trouble is in your environment, and I'm not talking about air pollution. You've got a community structure that allows second-stringers like Lucasi and Tony Danger to get a strangle-hold on everything that's good here. Are you with me, Tatum?'

'I'm following you,' the Captain replied, almost meekly.

Lyons could not believe it. The big tough cop was standing there getting a lecture, even responding to it with humility. Well, maybe he had it coming and knew it. He was a big man.

Bolan was telling him, 'One of your proudest citizens — Maxwell Thornton. He's not the great white father he's cracked up to be. He's a sick, miserable, harried man. The mob has the spurs in him, and they're riding the guy